Happiness According to Niall Williams
by Andrea Elise
Hello, High Plains Public Radio listeners. This is Andrea Elise coming to you from Amarillo, Texas. Have you ever read a book that considers the dilemmas and questions we encounter almost every day while, at the same time, delivers the promises of a generation?
In his magnificent novel, This is Happiness, Irish author Niall Williams tackles a myriad of issues we face daily. Williams is a very poetic and lyrical fiction author, and the mellifluence of his phrasing and structure are almost otherworldly. But it is the content of his work that informs us. The main character in the novel, Noel (then a teenager), remarks that he woke one night “with a fear [he] couldn’t name but later came to think of as the fear that [he] might NOT discover what it meant to live a fully human life.”
He was alarmed that he would not find the answer to what he was supposed to do with the life he had been given. How many times have we heard the admonition from well-meaning folks that to compare is to despair? In poetic language, Williams gives us examples of this and other life predicaments.
Noel spends a great deal of time with Christy, an electrician who arrives in Faha, a small, remote village in Ireland, to work on electrifying the town. Christy has come to Faha, not only to connect the village with electricity, but also to re-connect with a love of 50 years past with whom, to say it colloquially, “he blew it” by abruptly leaving. Christy never overcame the shame and feelings of sadness about his actions.
Noel questions if imaginative folks like Christy suffer more than grounded ones, and he wonders if “solitariness is a seedbed for absolutes.” He comes to the conclusion that one thing life teaches us is that there are many moments where we can exclaim, “this is happiness!” simply because we are alive to say it. We have surrendered to the plot of our own story.
Later, at a loved one’s funeral, Noel notices that perhaps the suis generis of life is a deep sense of community. With that, he understands that, even though he may not see a person in this existence again, the idea of renewal shines with its own kind of exquisiteness and illumination.
Most of us have read research indicating that psychological flexibility is a key to greater happiness and well-being. For example, being open to emotional experiences and the ability to tolerate periods of discomfort can allow us to move towards a richer, more meaningful existence.
Noel, Christy and so many others in the community of Faha and in our own populace exhibit this psychological flexibility. The result is nothing short of miraculous. In addition, conversation and gratitude continue to be crucial remedies against anger, division and loneliness, all conditions of our own lives.
After a long stretch of drought in Faha, a cloudburst turns all the faces in the village to the sky. How rewarding it would be if we all looked toward light beams, even during the darkest periods of our days, and shared them with our neighbors.
That is the underpinning of happiness. Let us build upon that foundation as much as we can.
This is Andrea Elise for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club.
